Note: This review was first published on 1st July 2026.
Smart glasses are no longer quite the gadgets from science fiction movies that we watched while growing up, although I still think we are some distance away from everyone happily walking around with cameras, speakers and AI assistants sitting on their faces. What has changed in recent years, especially over the past couple of years, is that the category has started to feel a lot more normal, and a big part of that has been driven by Meta’s partnership with EssilorLuxottica. The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 glasses worked better than I expected because they did not try too hard to look like a piece of tech toy. They looked like Ray-Bans first, and smart glasses second, which made the whole concept much easier to accept. That matters because the smart glasses market is heating up quickly, with Counterpoint figures showing the display-less smart glasses market surging 210 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026 alone, while Meta accounted for 84 per cent of the market.
That is the world HTC is stepping into with the VIVE Eagle. Unlike HTC’s more familiar VIVE VR and XR headsets, this is not a headset, nor is it trying to put a display in front of your eyes. It is closer in spirit to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses: a pair of everyday-looking smart glasses with a camera, open-ear speakers, microphones, voice controls and an AI assistant that lives alongside your phone. In Singapore, the VIVE Eagle starts at $730 with ZEISS UV400 sun lenses (reviewed here), while the AdaptiveSun version costs S$880, putting it above the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 range, which starts from $629 locally and goes up to S$699 for the Scriber Optics and Blayzer Optics models.
Hardware and design
The adjustable nose pads are a better fit for Asians.
Photo: HWZ
Smart glasses should look cool, more a fashion statement than a gadget on your face, and I thought the VIVE Eagle mostly clears that hurdle. The frame and arms are thicker than a normal pair of sunglasses to house all the necessary circuitries, as expected, but it can remain remarkably conspicuous unless someone is paying close attention to the camera module on the frame. It comes in Black, Berry, Coffee and Grey for the medium size, while the large size is limited to Black and Grey.
HTC lists the medium model at 48.8g with lenses, while the large version comes in at 51.5g, and that puts it in roughly the same range as the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 Scriber Optics that I reviewed earlier. From my time spent with it, I found the VIVE Eagle comfortable enough for short stretches but like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, you do become aware of it after a while, especially around the bridge of the nose. The adjustable nose pads help, and I do think HTC’s focus on Asian fit makes sense, but anyone expecting these to feel exactly like a normal pair of sunglasses will need to manage their expectations.
Where the Ray-Ban Meta glasses have the advantage is still in the overall eyewear experience. That is not really surprising, because Ray-Ban has decades of design familiarity working in its favour, and Meta’s smartest move was always to hide its technology inside a lifestyle brand most people already recognise. The VIVE Eagle looks decent, but it feels more like a tech company’s version of fashionable eyewear – to me anyway. The build feels solid enough, the arms do not feel flimsy, and the physical controls are sensible, with voice command, a touchpad, a capture button and a power/AI button all available. But when placed next to the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 Scriber Optics, the VIVE Eagle does not quite have the same easy style or polish. It is a respectable first effort from HTC, but the Meta glasses from Ray-Ban still feel like the more natural thing to wear daily.
Performance and everyday use
The VIVE Eagle’s design language made it more like a gadget than a lifestyle accessory.
Photo: HWZ
The VIVE Eagle is built around the Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1, with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, which is broadly in line with what you would expect from this current generation of display-free smart glasses. Setup is straightforward enough through the VIVE Connect app, and the glasses work as a hands-free extension of your phone for music, calls, voice commands, translation and quick camera capture. HTC’s big software pitch is VIVE AI, which can access Google Gemini and ChatGPT, and this gives the Eagle a slightly different flavour from the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which are naturally tied to Meta AI.
In daily use, the most useful parts are the simple ones. Taking a call without reaching for your phone works well enough, and the open-ear speakers are fine for voice prompts, podcasts and casual music listening. Like the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, this is not a replacement for proper earbuds, especially if you care about bass or isolation, but that is not really the point. The appeal is that you can listen while still being aware of your surroundings, which is useful when walking around the office or commuting. HTC says the Eagle uses a beamforming microphone array with one directional and three omni-directional microphones, along with stereo bass-enhanced open-ear speakers, and the hardware is clearly tuned around voice-first interactions rather than serious music listening.
A portable charging case would have been more ideal and neater.
Photo: HWZ
The camera is where the VIVE Eagle starts to feel both fun and slightly compromised. HTC uses a 12MP ultra-wide camera that captures photos at 3,024 x 4,032 pixels, which is the same photo resolution I saw on the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2. But video is where Meta pulls ahead. The VIVE Eagle records at 1,512 x 2,016 at 30fps, while the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 can shoot up to 3K (2,384 x 3,168) video. In good light, the VIVE Eagle is perfectly usable for quick first-person photos and short social clips, especially if you treat it as a spontaneous capture device rather than a proper camera. But if you are the sort of person who already enjoyed the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 for casual bike rides, walks or quick hands-free clips, the VIVE Eagle’s lower video ceiling is noticeable.
Battery life is decent, but again, context matters. HTC rates the VIVE Eagle for more than 36 hours on standby, up to 4.5 hours of continuous music playback and more than three hours of continuous voice calls from its 235mAh battery. It also supports magnetic fast charging, with HTC claiming a one to 50 per cent charge in 10 minutes and one to 80 per cent in 23 minutes. That quick top-up is helpful, but I still prefer Meta’s charging case approach because it feels more natural for a product like this. With the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, the case doubles as a portable charger, so putting the glasses away also means you are charging them. With the VIVE Eagle, the magnetic cable works, but it feels more like charging a gadget than storing a pair of glasses, and I found that small difference matters more than it should.
The AI features are useful in specific situations, but they did not completely change how I used the glasses. Translation, quick search queries, reminders and AI Notes are the kinds of features that sound great in a demo, and I can see the appeal for travel, meetings or quick hands-free note-taking. HTC says VIVE AI Notes can transcribe conversations, identify different speakers and generate summaries, with data protected by AES-256 encryption and stored locally, while VIVE AI Plus is included as a 24-month trial with the glasses. Still, this is also where smart glasses continue to feel like they are slightly ahead of everyday behaviour. There are times when speaking to your glasses feels convenient, and there are times when it still feels socially awkward. That was true of the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, and it remains true here.
Final thoughts
The camera is built on the right side of the smart glasses.
Photo: HWZ
After using the VIVE Eagle, I came away feeling that HTC has made a pretty capable pair of AI smart glasses, but not necessarily the pair I would recommend over the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2. The hardware is light enough, the camera is useful for casual hands-free capture, the audio works well for calls and spoken content, and HTC’s approach to AI is interesting because it is not locked to a single LLM model. I also appreciate the stronger emphasis on privacy, especially with local encrypted storage, recording safeguards and HTC’s claim that personal data is not used for AI training. In a category where people are still trying to work out how comfortable they are with cameras on faces, that positioning is sensible. Crucially on that thought, would I trust HTC more than Meta here? Perhaps naively so.
The problem is Meta still has the edge in this segment. The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 looks better, has a more mature ecosystem, offers stronger video capture, comes with a more elegant charging case, and starts at a lower price in Singapore. The VIVE Eagle is not bad at all, and for users who prefer HTC’s privacy pitch, want access to Gemini and OpenAI, or like the idea of AI Notes and translation in a wearable, it has a clear identity of its own. But at S$730 to S$880, it is asking for a lot of trust from buyers, especially when the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 already makes the smart glasses concept feel more approachable.
So, would I recommend the VIVE Eagle? I would, but with a fairly specific caveat. If you want smart glasses that lean more heavily into AI assistance, note-taking and privacy, the VIVE Eagle is worth considering, particularly if the fit works well for your face. But if what you want is the more rounded everyday product – one that looks better, records better video, feels easier to live with and costs less to start – the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 remains the more convincing buy for now. HTC has shown that it can compete in this space, but for the VIVE Eagle to really take off, the next version needs to feel less like a good first attempt and more like something people would choose even without the AI pitch.
The HTC VIVE Eagle is available exclusively at Singtel. Click here to buy.